Sun Foreign Passport Claim Busted

Rupe’s downmarket troops at the Super Soaraway Currant Bun have clearly decided to extend their campaign of foreigner-bashing beyond refugees and others who can be demonised because some of them are Scary Muslims (tm). So today the paper has led with an attempt to bash all those who do not hold a British passport - or, whisper it quietly, do not solely hold a British passport.

Under the by-line of Steve Hawkes, deputy to the Sun’s non-bullying political editor Tom Newton Dunn, readers are told “5M FOREIGN PASSPORT HOLDERS LIVING IN BRITAIN”. And just to make sure those readers take the hint, the headline is preceded by the just slightly loaded phrase “MIGRANT SHOCK”. Wise up, Sun readers, they’ve all come here to claim benefits and get free houses!

But then comes the detail of that “Five Million” claim: for starters, there is no mention, when the numbers for EU member states are pitched, that almost as many Brits have moved the other way and are now living elsewhere in the EU - many in Spain. Nor is there any explanation why the Irish are now considered to be “migrants” - their right to live and work in the UK pre-dates EU membership by decades.

How many Brits live and work in Ireland? We aren’t told: the Sun only wants to talk about one part of the picture. How many of those “five million” are students and workers on short-term placements (whose permanent residence is not in the UK)? Nope, you don’t get to find that out. How many of those from (say) the USA are employees of the Federal Government - diplomats, military personnel and the like? No word on that either.

This matters: none of those could credibly be called “migrants”. We would not expect the USA to call our diplomats and trade promoters “migrants”. And then there are those from India, Pakistan and the rest of the Commonwealth. How many of those are relatives of British passport holders? How many hold dual nationality? Ah, but the Sun doesn’t want to go there, because that would mean less of those “migrants”.

But the paper does want to make the numbers look as scary as possible, which may be why readers are also told about refugees - and that there are almost a million of them. Are they all coming to the UK? No, but the Sun wants its readers to know that they’re on the move somewhere in the EU. Because that’s enough to set those readers off believing that it’s yet another million coming here to claim benefits. Allegedly.

And the one category of “migrant” the Sun is most definitely not going to tell its readers about is the kind that owns the paper. Because Rupert Murdoch isn’t a “migrant”, you see, he’s a businessman, a tycoon, a mover, a shaker. We should not look at him and his “tax efficient” propaganda generation operation, but at those who have taken the courageous decision to make a new life in another country - just to be able to get by.

The Sun - victimising those at the bottom of the pile since the day Creepy Uncle Rupe was allowed to get his grubby mitts on it, then blaming someone else for the consequences.